


The Sibling Substitution

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Category: The Big Bang Theory (TV)
Genre: M/M, Secret Skraw 2015, Skraw Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-28 20:02:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5103959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was all just two friends looking out for each other, that’s all. One pining over losing his girlfriend, one pining over losing his memory foam mattress.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sibling Substitution

**Author's Note:**

> The Big Bang Theory characters do not belong to me and I am not making any money off this work of fan fiction.
> 
> * * *

Leonard wakes up more or less in the right place: Raj’s bed, the pillows reluctantly conforming to the shape of his head, the early morning light filtering through the curtains and imparting a soft haze to everything. He is naked but accessorized with a familiar brown-skinned arm draped across his waist. Leonard is perpetually the little spoon, even if Priya is the same height as he is. His regular morning guilt about sleeping with Raj's sister in Raj's bed hits and is gone as fast as it came.

Something about it seems off somehow, but maybe that’s just the morning-haze, the confusion of the half-asleep. He’s not wearing his glasses, either. His myopia makes everything that bit more blurry and unreal.

Part of him  _is_ wide awake, though, that part of him that wakes up first for many men, and Leonard wonders whether Priya will mind if he wakes her up. They may be incompatible on the subject of geeky pursuits, but when it comes to sex they’ve been working together to find common ground. He is still not quite sure whether the things she says about his enthusiasm are, strictly speaking, complimentary, but he’s going to take them as such.

It can’t hurt to try. The worst she can do is kick him out of bed and demand that he make breakfast while she showers, which is not much of a punishment.

Leonard skims his fingers from Priya’s wrist to her elbow, and again that niggling feeling that something’s not right surfaces. Priya has slender arms and these are not; they’re also covered with a heavier fuzz of hair than he’s accustomed to. Still, arousal has sunk its insistent hot claws into his lower belly, and he’s hazy enough not to think much of it.

The person behind him sighs and moves and suddenly there’s a hardness pressing against the back of Leonard’s bare thigh that he can’t even remotely conceive of as belonging to Priya. There’s a hitch in his bedmate’s breathing as it changes from slow sleep to wakefulness.

Leonard can’t keep pretending nothing is going on. He rolls to his back and opens his eyes all the way.

“ _Raj_ ?”

“ _Leonard_ ?”

Then, together, breath warm and hectic on each other’s faces: “What did we  _do_ ?”

*

They puzzle it out together, still lying in bed (what the hell, it’s warm and it’s not like they haven’t shared much closer quarters before; thanks for that, Arctic Circle).

Raj, moderately done up on wine, had left Sheldon and Penny to assert his ownership of his apartment, bedroom, and defiled memory foam mattress. He’d taken a cab over, sensibly avoiding drink-driving, although not avoiding haranguing the poor driver about friends stealing aforementioned apartment, etc.

Priya had developed enough of a sense of guilt at using her brother’s apartment (etc.) that that night’s round of arguing with Leonard about where her career was going to take her had taken her out of the apartment entirely. Raj had in fact passed her out front of the building, drunkenly unaware that she was stalking briskly to the curb, taking the same cab he’d arrived in to the nearest hotel, her patience finally worn down.

Leonard had barely had time to slump on the couch before Raj’s key had rattled in the door.

Then there had been more alcohol.

And then—

“We did  _something_ , all right,” Raj says. “You’re probably used to feeling post-coital, but I’m not.”

“‘All right’ is not the phrase I’d use here.” Leonard throws his left arm over his eyes and groans. “Cheating on your girlfriend with her brother isn’t ‘all right’. Neither is the phrase ‘post-coital’.”

“Dude, if you want us to figure this out, telling me I can’t say half of what I’m trying to isn’t going to help.”

Leonard peers out from under his shield-arm. “Go on, then, enlighten me.”

“I don’t think we actually had  _sex_ sex. If that makes you feel any better.”

“Kind of?”

“I think it was just... regular drunk stuff. Making out. Maybe a little more.”

“I’d say  _definitely_ , not  _maybe_ .”

“How come?”

“Well, are  _you_ wearing any pants?”

The sudden silence from beside him speaks volumes.

“Oh, God.” Leonard scrubs the palm of his hand over his eyes and then drops it to his belly, where it fetches up against Raj’s arm.

“What do you want to do about this?”

“I don’t know. What do  _you_ want to do about it?”

Raj shrugs, then rolls to his left side and props himself up with his left arm to look down at Leonard. “Hair of the dog?”

“Do you mean the alcohol, or—”

Raj cuts him off with a kiss.

*

They drive back to Los Robles in Leonard’s car, sated and still a little sleepy, discussing the necessity for a cover story, agreeing that they don’t need one.

It was all just two friends looking out for each other, that’s all. One pining over losing his girlfriend, one pining over losing his memory foam mattress.

It was just draining the bottle dry, drinking to the sanctity of bedrooms, and then making the bedroom their sanctuary for just a little while, a little while of kissing, touching, kissing, stroking, kissing, tossing inhibitions by the wayside.

Just those little things.

So maybe the next few nights will be awkward. Leonard will have trouble watching Raj eat, knowing where else those lips have been; Raj will find himself fixated on Leonard’s hands as they gesture to illustrate some point he’s making, thinking of them warm and a little nervous on his skin.

Raj’s car is where he left it.

“Do you want to come up?” Leonard asks, getting a preview of how awkward things might get when Raj doesn’t answer immediately.

But then Raj gives him one of his usual bright smiles, and the awkwardness dissipates into the clear blue California morning sky. “Sure. It’s polite to walk you home, right?”

Leonard flushes to the roots of his hair and almost drops his keys.

They walk up the stairs in companionable silence. The building is quiet, drowsing in early weekend laziness. 4A is quiet, no sound of  _Doctor Who_ or  _Star Trek_ —two of Sheldon’s Saturday morning staples—coming from behind the closed door.

It makes Leonard frown.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s too quiet.”

Raj tilts his head towards the door. “Go on. Maybe Sheldon’s overslept. This could be an historic occasion. Maybe you should turn your phone camera on just in case.”

Leonard shakes his head through this, but unlocks the door anyway.

The living room is a shambles of no-longer-quite-swan napkins, half-eaten food drying onto plates, and empty wine bottles. Leonard counts three, but one is lying on its side, its contents glugged out onto the rug. Sheldon’s striped cushion is askew on the couch.

Leonard reaches for his phone, not to take pictures but to call the police. But then he sees something that stops him, while at the same time being a nigh-inexplicable piece of the puzzle.

Penny’s blouse is hanging over the back of one of the chairs. Beside it is Sheldon’s Green Lantern t-shirt.

Raj sees it as well and his eyes go wide. He lunges for the hallway leading toward the bedrooms. Leonard tries to hold him back, but in the end it’s easier to let him go quietly.

What they see in Sheldon’s bedroom is perhaps better left to the imagination, and only proves that the impossible, no matter how improbable, can become the truth if enough alcohol is applied to it.

“What does this mean?” Leonard whispers, gently closing Sheldon’s bedroom door.

“I think this means we get to defile your mattress this time,” Raj says, and pulls Leonard in for a kiss.


End file.
